IRON CURTAIN: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956 by Anne Applebaum (London: Allen Lane/Penguin) Hardcover: 614 pages ISBN: 9780713998689 RRP: AUD$49.95 Reviewed by Bill James When I reviewed Anne Applebaum’s Gulag: A History a decade ago (News Weekly, September 6, 2003), I commented that it was refreshing to come across a baby-boomer journalist…
THE NEXT 100 YEARS: A Forecast for the 21st Century by George Friedman (New York: Random House) Paperback: 253 pages ISBN: 9780767923057 RRP: AUD$31.95 Reviewed by Dallas Clarnette Are we seeing the demise of Western leadership? Does the rise of China threaten America’s supremacy of the Pacific? Is resurgent Islam a time-bomb promising…
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, 3D (rated M), is reviewed by Symeon Thompson. Ladies and gentlemen. The latest ad for Tourism New Zealand is here. Yes, it’s Peter Jackson’s adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit as a 3D film, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (part one of three). It is a clever exercise in fabulism…
While not usually inclined to grant any concessions at all to radical ideologies with which I cannot agree, when it comes to being alerted critically to iconic portrayals of women in the genre that has become known as “chick lit”, I find myself having to acknowledge that the cultural wing of the feminist movement has…
